34Intruder0001

Intruder

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This is the seminal JAQrabbit Tale.

It’s the first story that I wrote with this series in mind, and it kinda sets the template for the series as a whole. It’s based on a true story… in fact, it’s based on two true stories, which I combined into one. That’s the kind of fudging of the facts for dramatic purposes – and to protect the anonymity and privacy of the subjects – that I do. :) I figured that, if I could make a comic about this sexual incident, which could capture and portray myself as a character at this point in my life, I could do that for a whole biography. I am nothing if not creatively ambitious.

This was also the first story that I drew entirely digitally, from scratch, using Manga Studio on a Windows Tablet computer (in this case, a 10″ HP/Compaq TC1000). And I’m sure it shows. I drew it shortly after the second incident, so that was over five years ago now. Yeah, I’ve been working on JAQrabbit Tales that fucking long! I colored it more recently (2-3 years ago), and I admit that I fixed some of the more embarrassing drawing “problems” while I was at it. But mostly this is authentic 2009-era Quest illustration.

We’re rapidly coming up on the first anniversary of the series being published, which has me pretty excited, and I figured now would be a good time to get this, the story that started it all, out into the world!


I don’t lock my doors. I mean, sure: when I leave the house I do. We didn’t lock the doors in the neighborhood where I grew up, but here on Baxter Street, it just wouldn’t be smart. But when I’m home? Why would I? What am I supposed to be afraid of? I have a friend who lives in an apartment complex with a security entrance, who also locks and deadbolts and chains his apartment door whenever he’s home. It’s sad. (He also watches a lot of TV news… not a coincidence.)

“Home invasion” incidents, where a burglar breaks into someone’s house while they’re sleeping, are pretty uncommon. Why tip-toe around in the dark when you could instead wait for the people who live there to go out, and break in then? The myth of the menacing burglar is mostly just part of the marketing of handguns (and worse) for “home protection”.

The only times I’ve had anyone enter my home while I was there, it was either a drunken mistake, a drunken error in good judgment, or because they’d seen their stray cat sneak in my open-for-ventilation door. But that last one is is a whole ‘nother story. :)